While everyone was in World Politics class on Friday I found myself wandering around in the woods looking for a little panel taped to a tree on the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. My weekend from 3:30 a.m. Friday Morning to 12:00 noon on Sunday consisted of various Army land navigation, squad tactical operations, and forward operating base operations. Besides the 56 hours of no sleep, the frigid temperatures that a South Florida boy like me has no experience with, and the hunger after eating crackers and cheese spread out of an MRE as a meal, I still found myself relating my experiences to the greater picture of security.
On Friday we basically conducted land navigation exercises all day. In the late afternoon we divided up into our squads and fire teams for the combat operations. During this time we basically went over all the basic tactics that one would expect and that we've been learning all year. Afterwards we conducted land navigation in the pitch black woods. Let's put it this way, you can see about five meters in front of you and you are looking for a tiny placard that designates what you hope is your point on a tree, and you got to do it the old fashioned way with a compass, protractor, and a bit of math. I found it very interesting how much focus is still put on the old fashioned methods when we have all the advanced GPS technology and it made me glad that the military is not becoming completely reliant on that technology. When we got back we were taught classes on Forward Operating Base operations. This is where things got interesting. There was of course a focus on things such as manning checkpoints, doing surveillance, detaining and questioning prisoners, etc... but there was a huge focus on dealing with non-conventional threats. We were taught how to react to things such as vehicle borne IEDs, suicide bombers, belligerent indigenous peoples, hit and run tactics, and trickery. There was such a great emphasis on how to best deal with civilians that we come across, media in the field, etc... Also we were taught about culturally sensitive issues such as the fact that certain hand movements are recognized in different ways (Never give a thumbs up signal to an Arab person, trust me on that). Also there was talk of how to deal with the language barrier and things like the fact that in Iraq and Afghanistan it is perfectly fine for any male to be walking around with an Ak-47. It is part of their culture and in some cases, their constitution. Again and Again I heard the words, "treat these people as if they were your family members. Be forceful, but remember that they are people and you can't just shoot them, no matter how annoying they are unless they pose a direct threat." This was comforting to hear when you consider that this is really what we need to be cognisant of in today's wars.
Saturday came around and the no sleep factor was starting to affect judgment etc... but I was able to play the part of a terrorist hiding in a bunker for most of the day. It was interesting because the threat to the squads I was attacking didn't end when the shooting stopped. I often was told to pretend I had a grenade or an IED planted underneath my body and that it would blow up if they didn't check me and deal with it. It is really a tough situation sometimes and many times the only way you know that there is an IED is if someone sets it off and in a manner of speaking, "takes one for the team." After ten hours of this we moved to the most interesting part of the whole thing which was putting into practice the things we learned the night before about the FOB operations and conducting them. The "fog of war" as it were, really set in as all sorts of native people came to the gate, some cooperative, some not, some looking for help or work, some looking to kill us. It was very difficult to maintain a respectful and "nice" disposition towards them when you couldn't be sure if they had a bomb under their shirt or a gun hidden in their belt which happened a couple of times. You have to operate to where you trust no one. Due to this it is hard for the native population to feel all warm and fuzzy towards you, although I learned that sharing skittles and M'n Ms goes a long way. You have to be forceful if people just insist in hanging around or trying to get in and this can appear rude and unfair to the local people as well. However its really for our safety and their safety if the escalation of force is maintained. Shout, Shove, Show, Shoot is how it goes for an armed civilian and shout, shove, show, detain, is how it goes for unarmed civilians. Of course this is all dependent on the situation and someone who is unarmed may actually be wearing a bomb vest and you aren't going to want to go anywhere near them, but the truth is there is no way of really knowing sometimes. You have to be violent and forceful to maintain security and sometimes that rubs people the wrong way.
As I rode the bus back from the base after 56 hours of all this I found myself thinking that we talk a lot about theories and concepts of how things should be done, but so often it does not translate to the real world. People are constantly saying how we should do this or that in terms of dealing with situations like I described before, but so often these ideas go to crap when confronted with the real deal and circumstances change so fast. Is there a perfect solution? I don't know. Are we working towards one in the right direction? Yes, I think the military has made a significant shift in the right direction when it comes to today's changing battlefield. Things will always be changing we will always have to adapt and improvise to keep up and maintain our security. I think we should just try and remember the practicality of many of the theories and strategies that we talk about because many times it can make the situation worse. An example is when we decided we would try a more trusting and "friendlier" attitude towards Afghan locals and so we didn't search their women or even their men if they were our supposed allies. They brought a man in with a suicide vest into a Forward Operating Base much like the one I was in this weekend and he blew himself up killing several CIA operatives and a couple of contractors. The consequences of failure on these issues is much to great to be taking chances on things like this. People never like being told what to do. Soldiers in Afghanistan are viewed by the locals like Police are in the United States. People tend not to like them because they enforce the laws that people sometimes like to break. It comes from perspective. Just because people don't like being told what to do doesn't mean they shouldn't do whats right and follow the laws and customs that our soldiers or police are upholding.
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